This will be a short post today since it’s already midnight and it was a travel day anyway so not many pics. 

This is Francesca, our driver for the past week. She works with Oli and Flo but is also a journalist, writing for a newspaper. 

This is Frank, Oli and Flo’s sausage dog. 

Had to take a couple more pics from the window this morning. The clouds were so ominous looking. 

And one last pic of the old clock tower. 

Made it to the train station with a few minutes to spare, got to the right track, got on the train right on time, then was told by the conductor we were on the wrong train. Ours was late and this one came in at the time ours was supposed to be there, so we just hopped right on. Fortunately it was going to Rome, just a different station, which meant that our tickets from the other station to the airport weren’t going to work. The conductor was nice enough to look up the schedule and tell us what train we needed to take. 

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Security at the airport in Rome was a little busier than when we left Dallas. 

Funny looking cheese at the airport. 

Colorful plates of food. 

Our snack on Lufthansa, a German airline, is a piece of chocolate. 

Flying over snow covered peaks of Austria. 

Landing in Munich. 

We had a layover in Munich so couldn’t be in Bavaria without trying a Bavarian pretzel. 

Bus from the airplane to the airport in Thessaloniki. 

The plane we were on from Munich to Thessaloniki. 

Customs at the airport was only doing a check of the passenger locator form, one of many that we filled out before leaving home.

The next part of our journey was a bit worrisome. We have hired a private taxi tour company to take us around Greece for the next four days. Nickolaos is our driver. I contacted him from the Munich airport to let him know we were on schedule. 

He replied with this photo of himself and said he was on his way to Thessaloniki from Athens so all was good. 

When we walked out of baggage claim there was a man standing with my name on his computer screen so we went with him. It wasn’t Nickolaos and his English was virtually non-existent. We managed to understand that it was about a 20 min drive to where we were going. He had to stop on the side of the road to keep looking at his phone for directions, which was a bit unnerving. We drove through Thessaloniki, a city of almost 2 million people, down some dark alleys and through some very unsavory looking places. We had driven around a block and pulled into a dark alley where he was looking for a number 7. I was hoping that we weren’t going to be mugged and left in this dark alley tonight. About that time  Nickolaos stepped out from between two cars. I was never so glad to see a familiar face. He explained that his car was having transmission problems so he has taken it to “the service” and he is afoot, so he called a taxi to pick us up. Tomorrow we will do a walking tour of Thessaloniki and the next day he has rented a minivan (as opposed to his Mercedes SUV 🙁) for the rest of our stay. However, the saga doesn’t end there. Our apartment, where we’re staying the next two nights, is in this dark alley. The elevator is too small for us to all get into so Kim squeezed in with our two bags and Nickolaos and I walked up 5 flights of stairs. Whew! He opened the apartment door and it reeked. There’s a tiny hallway with a tinier bathroom, with a toilet that doesn’t flush, 

And a broken mirror. 

The bed is on the floor

and this is the inside of the hot water pot (no tea for me in the morning). The refrigerator has opened, used juice and some other stuff we weren’t quite sure about. There are big holes in the wall next to the bed and hair in the kitchen sink and the bathroom floor. It doesn’t appear to have been cleaned in awhile. Did I mention it reeked when we opened the door? About this time, Nickolaos either sees the look on my face or senses my distress, and says if you are angry, just please tell me. At this point I’m just thinking, what have I done? Kim just says we’re hungry. So, we leave our things in the apartment and walk a few blocks down to what he calls the old town to find a place to eat. 

Nickolaos leaves us at this restaurant and says he’ll be back in 30 minutes. He’s going to find us another place to stay tomorrow night. Apparently there’s a huge exhibition going on and all the hotels are booked. We were supposed to be in 4* hotels as part of our tour package. We are clearly NOT in a 4* hotel tonight. 

The man in the green striped shirt is rolling a cart with hand-cranked music, that is covered with flowers he is peddling. It’s 10 pm and we are finally getting something to eat. 

Kim ordered Greek sausage

I had traditional Greek salad. You’ll notice there’s no lettuce. Nickolaos returns before we get our food and tells us he has found us a 5* hotel for tomorrow night. There’s nothing for tonight so we are stuck where we are. 

You may have noticed that I didn’t get this posted last night. I couldn’t get the pics to download and fell asleep in the process. 

I don’t like to post negative things but this was just too much not to mention. 

We are meeting Nickolaos at 9 am to walk to breakfast and begin our tour. So for now, yassas (goodbye)!